Is this enough?

[ieatshrimp24]

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A lot of medical school applicants have so many activities on their applications. I'm just wondering if the following is enough to not necessarily impress but be good enough to interest adcoms. Two years of research with publication(s), two years of being a paid medical scribe, EMT certification, a summer of shadowing doctors. Do I really need to have volunteer work and club positions as well if the people I've worked with give me good LORs?

 

[armybound]

yep, start a few clubs, a nonprofit, and get about 1000 more hours shadowing and you might have a chance.

 

[202818]

seems like your legit....For podiatry school.

 

[Planes2Doc]

yep, start a few clubs, a nonprofit, and get about 1000 more hours shadowing and you might have a chance.

Sounds about right!

You have to at least pretend to be altruistic by doing volunteer work. Since you already have clinical experience, the volunteering does not have to be clinical.

Remember, you only put yourself at a disadvantage when you don't check the box which every pre-med and their mother do. 👎

 

[Bluto385]

Two years of research with publication(s), two years of being a paid medical scribe, EMT certification, a summer of shadowing doctors.

I got in without doing any of those things. And I'm white.

YOLO

 

[VisareAvGud]

I got in without doing any of those things. And I'm white.

YOLO

LOL

 

[IniestaDeMiVida]

I got in without doing any of those things. And I'm white.

YOLO

Same. I'm nontrad and had some work experience, but none of those things. It couldn't hurt you to get some volunteering in, though.

 

[DrSolus]

sigh* Do people just have a checklist to med school in their heads or something? There's a reason why adcoms want to see these kinds of activities on your application - they usually result in you having a better informed decision on career choice, and, in most cases, these experiences will make you a better doctor.

OP - At least pretend you're interested in doing these volunteer activities out of interest and not just to check em off a list? (sarcasm, don't pretend). Participate in said activities if you want to. I recommend you do, it might be enlightening.

Just make sure you go into them with the right attitude. You're there to help others first, and as a side consequence, you're helping yourself in the path to med school as well .

 

[MedPR]

You'll find out on October 15.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using SDN Mobile

 

[Planes2Doc]

sigh* Do people just have a checklist to med school in their heads or something? There's a reason why adcoms want to see these kinds of activities on your application - they usually result in you having a better informed decision on career choice, and, in most cases, these experiences will make you a better doctor.

Indeed there is a checklist. It's not technically official, but the moment you talk with your pre-med advisor, you will be told about what you need to do. Hence people who are more obvious about going through the motions are called "Box-Checkers."

OP - At least pretend you're interested in doing these volunteer activities out of interest and not just to check em off a list? (sarcasm, don't pretend). Participate in said activities if you want to. I recommend you do, it might be enlightening.

I don't understand the sarcasm. 🙄 Oh wait a minute, in life outside of SDN it's totally okay to be a real human being. On SDN, if you somehow give the impression that you would NOT have had fifteen slots on the AMCAS application filled with volunteer work had you NOT been a pre-med, then you will be considered a horrible person. 😕

Just make sure you go into them with the right attitude. You're there to help others first, and as a side consequence, you're helping yourself in the path to med school as well .

In most cases, it's just them helping you. Why would any sane person agree to "volunteer" in the ED (very common pre-med activity) when a majority just end up providing free labor for a hospital system and get treated like crap along the way. I don't quite see how it's directly helping patients to clean a bed or restock supplies, but I definitely see how it's helping to line the pockets of the hospital board of directors.

On SDN, I'm sure more people are doing things that are hopefully meaningful to them, whether they lie about how they feel on here or not. I'm sure that in that case, they are probably helping someone else. But outside of SDN, where the majority of Cookie-Cutter pre-meds are lining up to volunteer in EDs, then they are just doing the work of an orderly for free. If it was actually so much fun, then the ED techs would want to do their work for free as well.

 

[DrSolus]

Why would any sane person agree to "volunteer" in the ED (very common pre-med activity) when a majority just end up providing free labor for a hospital system and get treated like crap along the way. I don't quite see how it's directly helping patients to clean a bed or restock supplies, but I definitely see how it's helping to line the pockets of the hospital board of directors.

On SDN, I'm sure more people are doing things that are hopefully meaningful to them, whether they lie about how they feel on here or not. I'm sure that in that case, they are probably helping someone else. But outside of SDN, where the majority of Cookie-Cutter pre-meds are lining up to volunteer in EDs, then they are just doing the work of an orderly for free. If it was actually so much fun, then the ED techs would want to do their work for free as well.

So don't volunteer in the ER! There are a million ways to volunteer and to gain meaningful clinical experience. You just have to look...You're right though, I'm definitely looking in the wrong place for displays of passion and all that other fuzzy stuff, and plus I definitely did my fair share of cookie cutter activities.

Still, I just want to encourage the OP to consider why he/she should do those ECs, rather than just telling him/her to do it. I understand that it's difficult to stand out from the thousands of other applicants, but at least try to find your own path to medicine. I saw some statistic recently about how ~50% of doctors are dissatisfied with their chosen profession - with all the cookie-cutter ECs, perhaps this is why? Maybe because taking the check-box approach and only thinking about it that way is all wrong.

OP - Don't get me wrong, check those boxes. But for the sake of your own personal career satisfaction, I think you should pursue ECs that you care about, not just to check boxes. But I'm probably just naive/gullible and I believe the bull**** and this is probably the wrong place to post stuff about that.

My answer is: yes, you should look for some volunteer opportunities to further support your application, it doesn't hurt (unless you decide to collect a whole laundry list of meaningless ones - then it really shows that you're just checking boxes). My apologies for taking the topic away from the thread's question.

 

[nysegop]

I got in without doing any of those things. And I'm white.

YOLO

Lol. Perfect profile pic for that too.

 

[Almost7Famous]

I just wanted to ask a quick question w/o starting a new thread. Can you put an activities that you were involved in the summer before undergrad starts (summer after 12th grade) on the application.